LANforge ICE is a network emulator. It can add impairments in a controlled and reproducible manner to aid in testing applications and network equipment that must operate over a network. LANforge supports many impairments: latency, bandwidth, jitter, packet loss, packet reordering and more. It can act as a layer-2 pass-through device for easy insertion into the system under test. It also supports 802.1Q VLANs, router emulation, bridges and other network elements for more advanced emulation needs. Emulation speeds range from 10bps to 5Gbps, and some systems support more than 48 concurrent emulations.

Some users may want to simulate an entire LAN or WAN network. LANforge ICE supports this with it's Netsmith feature. Netsmith is a click-and-drag virtual network builder. It supports Bridges (switches) including spanning tree protocol, as well as OSPF, BGP, RIP and multicast routers. IPv4 and IPv6 routing protocols are supported, and the bridge will handle any Ethernet frame. LANforge is running real router and bridge software, so it can exchange messages with external equipment to populate routes and set up spanning trees

LANforge-FIRE Stateful Network Traffic Generator

LANforge FIRE generates and receives various network protocols. It is used to create load on a network under test. It reports statistics such as packets sent and received, latency, packet-loss and many other network characteristics. LANforge supports real protocols and stateful TCP connections, so it can generate load against web servers, VOIP gateways, firewalls, load-balancers and many other network components. LANforge can virtualize network adapters and wifi station interfaces. It can also act as a router or group of routers supporting OSPF, RIP, BGP and Multicast (PIM, IGMP). LANforge supports IPv4 and IPv6.

The LANforge system consists of a single manager process, and one or more traffic generator machines (resources). The resources are connected to the manager over a management network. Devices under test are connected to the non-management ports of LANforge systems. If needed, LANforge can also generate traffic on the management network. The LANforge GUI may run on the LANforge machines or on the customer's PCs. The GUI should connect to the manager machine. Multiple GUIs can be used concurrently.

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